RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


  • Suspending the Jones Act: Lessons from the Conflict with Iran

    Source: Independent Institute
    by Caleb Petitt

    “The Trump administration’s suspension of the Jones Act is well-reasoned; the Jones Act has kept oil prices in America higher than they would otherwise have been by increasing the cost of transporting oil. The Jones Act forces domestic shippers to use expensive ships with expensive crews, which drives up shipping costs beyond what a free market would bear. However, paying more for domestic shipping could easily be worth the cost if it made America more secure. Unfortunately, the Jones Act is a hindrance to American security.” (03/27/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/27/suspending-jones-act-iran/

  • The transaction explosion and the cost of judgment

    Source: Niskanen Center
    by Daniel Wilf-Townsend

    “Our civil justice institutions are about 100 years old, dating back to the progressive era and the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. But the world has changed a lot since then. In particular, the number of transactions in society has exploded, as population growth, economic growth, and technological change have exponentially increased the activity in society that leads to disputes. Separately, alongside the rise in civil disputes, the cost of the time and attention of legally trained experts has skyrocketed, rising faster than inflation for generations.” (03/27/26)

    https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-transaction-explosion-and-the-cost-of-judgment

  • Immigration, Culture, and Albert Jay Nock

    Source: Free Association
    by Sheldon Richman

    “[W]e require no heroic assumptions to understand that free immigration is good. New people and different ways of doing and seeing things mix with the existing cultural elements to produce, on the whole, innovation and immense general benefits. (See the work of Julian Simon and Matt Ridley.) All we need is freedom, an expectation of self-responsibility, and no government interference. In those conditions, reality and capitalism teach and reward virtue.” (03/27/26)

    https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-immigration-culture-and-albert

  • At home and abroad, Trump’s mission creep makes victory impossible

    Source: Los Angeles Times
    by Matt K Lewis

    “Whether it’s reopening the strait or funding DHS, Trump’s goalposts keep moving, and as a result, Democrats are largely insulated from the public’s blame for the airport mess. Democrats can’t be expected to end this impasse because Trump can’t even settle on a set of demands to which they could agree. This is Trump’s M.O. with Iran as well. His stated objectives have cycled through a full and complete surrender, regime change, deterrence, de-escalation, boots on the ground, blowing up power plants in 48 hours, and then backing off based on ‘productive conversations.’ (Not to mention that Trump ran for office promising to end ‘forever wars,’ not start new ones.) Trump — whose underlying belief is that pressure always produces capitulation — assumes he can bluster and bully his opponents into submission. But that only works if the other side agrees to play by those rules.” (03/27/26)

    https://archive.is/Wo3fd

  • War and Morality

    Source: Antiwar.com
    by Andrew P Napolitano

    “War is the most horrific series of events upon which any government can engage. It is systematic, industrialized, indiscriminate killing. It kills innocent adults and little girls. It often ruins the post-war lives of the killers. It is young men violently fighting old men’s power games. It is the health of the state. The war President Donald Trump is waging against the people and the government of Iran is immoral, unconstitutional and unlawful. Yet, because Congress is not doing its job, there appears to be no relief in sight until Trump finds a face-saving way to erase his grave mistake from the public’s long memory.” (03/27/26)

    https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/03/26/war-and-morality

  • Two Primary Elections for the Soul of “America First”

    Source: Libertarian Institute
    by Alan Mosley

    “Midterm elections are where slogans go to trial. Primaries, especially, are where interests that cannot reliably win a general election try to win the nomination. They do it with money, with media saturation, and with the oldest trick in politics: framing obedience as unity. This year, two Republican races show the fork in the road. In northern Kentucky, Rep. Thomas Massie is fighting a primary that has become a national vendetta project. In South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham is seeking a fifth term while publicly linking his political identity to a foreign-policy crusade, and treating dissent at home as a moral failing. If Massie survives and Graham falls, it signals that Republican voters still have room for independence, constitutional friction, and skepticism toward overseas commitments. If Massie loses and Graham wins, it signals the reverse: the slogan becomes a mascot for power, not a restraint on it.” (03/27/26)

    https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/two-primary-elections-for-the-soul-of-america-first

  • Betting on Better Governance

    Source: Isonomia Quarterly
    by George Agbesi & Joshua D Ammons

    “At one point, Gordon Tullock thought taxi medallions were inefficient but intractable institutions, a classic example of what he called the transitional gains trap. The medallion system persisted not because it served the public, but because the rents it generated were capitalized into medallion prices, making any reform politically impossible. Then came Uber, and within a matter of years this supposedly permanent institution crumbled. What if a similar technology shock could do the same for societies lacking the rule of law?” (03/27/26)

    https://isonomiamag.substack.com/p/betting-on-better-governance

  • The unreligious religiosity of Christian identity politics

    Source: Washington Post
    by Matthew Schmitz

    “Far from being a sign of resurgent faith, Christian identity politics is a symptom of religious decline. As one observer has noted, the fact that Americans are growing more secular and less religiously literate has made religion more salient as a marker of political difference, even as invocations of it become less informed.” (03/27/26)

    https://archive.is/9wrwf

  • Fecklessly Fining 4chan

    Source: Common Sense
    by Paul Jacob

    “You host a website. Users can say whatever they want on this site. Next thing you know, a UK regulatory agency is sending you, an American organization based in the United States, a letter announcing a trillion-dollar fine for failure to comply with UK censorship demands. How much do you panic? If you’re 4chan, not much.” (03/27/26)

    https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/27/fining4chan/

  • To End the Iran War, Trump Must Divorce Israel

    Source: The American Conservative
    by Andrew Day

    “As analysts have emphasized, Tehran ‘gets a vote’ as to when this war ends, and it doesn’t plan to stop until the U.S. and Israel learn that attacking Iran comes with high costs and shouldn’t be repeated in the future. The U.S., unable to hammer out an agreement, has been hammering Iran to coerce it to the negotiating table. … The Trump administration misunderstands the nature of the problem. To end the war, it needs to get tough not with America’s adversary, but with its cobelligerent: Israel.” (03/27/26)

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/to-end-the-iran-war-trump-must-divorce-israel/